Welcome to the course

Welcome to PTE Success: The Skills You Need. Meet your lead educator for the course, Sarah Bissell. In this video Sarah gives you an overview of the journey that you will take in this course.

PTE task types

Pearson Test of English (PTE) uses task-based questions that integrate a variety of skills to represent the kinds of functions and situations students encounter during academic study or while working in an English-speaking environment.

This PTE task types table shows you what you will see in the test. PTE has 20 task types, each of which assesses one language skill or a combination of skills.

In addition to testing the core communicative skills of Speaking, Writing, Listening and Reading, the different task types in PTE also test a number of subskills (specific language skills eg identifying the topic). It is these subskills that you will learn about and practise over the following weeks.

Note about standard spelling: PTE test items use American standard spelling. In this course, test examples use American spelling conventions, but the course content uses Australian spelling. The PTE test recognises and accepts American, British, Australian and Canadian spelling, but you need to be consistent within the question you are answering.

The following website lists the most common American and Australian spelling differences.

Meet the Team

Sarah Bissell

Hi, I am Sarah, the lead educator for this course and I’m delighted to be joining you each week as we learn about the skills for PTE success. I have 20 years’ experience in English language teaching, testing, teacher training and academic management. I also have a background in secondary school education and learning support. My professional interests are online learning and 21st century skills in language learning.

Here’s Sarah’s personal introduction in audio. View Sarah’s profile.

John Smith

Hi, I am John. I am the Assistant Director of Studies for University Programs at Griffith English Language Institute, Griffith University. I have been in English language teaching for over 20 years as a teacher, trainer, developer, manager and lecturer. I am also interested in digital design for learning and data analytics.

Here’s John’s personal introduction in audio. View John’s profile.

Your task

Throughout the course we will refer to each of the item types in the test as we develop the skills that will help you to tackle them. Learn about the test format and watch the video for an overview of the different item types .

You can use this hashtag #FLPTEsuccess to talk about the course on Twitter.